


The Kavinsky Memorial Roadtrip in Miniature

by strange_estrangement



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 03:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15921992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_estrangement/pseuds/strange_estrangement
Summary: Ronan takes a drive and reflects.





	The Kavinsky Memorial Roadtrip in Miniature

Ronan skipped the funeral.

Gansey had talked to him the night before; he was going to the funeral, of course, proud son of Virginia that he was. He’d look sharp doing it too, born to attend somber events, state or personal. He went to the same school, after all; it was his responsibility. Ronan had decided that he hated responsibility. Ronan had decided that he’d rather die. He told this to Gansey.

“Gansey, I’d rather die. I’d rather get dropped in the bottom of a well. I’d rather get steamrolled out over the pavement. I’d rather get smushed in an unfortunate cow-tipping accident. I’m not going.”

Gansey had rolled his eyes.

And so, he skipped. He waited in his room until Gansey left for the service, listened for the roar of the Pig out the window. He rolled out of bed, got dressed, grabbed two bottles of water from the kitchen/bathroom, and headed down to his car.

He didn’t have much of a plan other than to drive, maybe hit a couple key spots in his mental Kavinsky timeline. That seemed authentic, right? Just drift around town in the breeze. He knew he wouldn’t be able to handle a funeral, full of people pretending to mourn, or maybe not pretending so well. Maybe just spectating. Anyway, Ronan sure wasn’t going to sit there in a tie with the rest of them. No thanks! No thank you.

He tossed the water bottles into the seat next to him, twisted the key in the ignition, shifted into first, exited Monmouth’s lot, and shifted into second. He realized quickly that “a couple key spots in the Kavinsky timeline” would mean virtually every stop sign and red light in town. Where hadn’t they streetraced? The town’s pavement was littered with black tread, echoes of squealing tires, the smell of rubber from burnouts.

He’d shifted into third, but saw the stop sign up ahead. Milestone number one, check. He downshifted, stopped, and put the car in neutral. He paused, looking over at a phantom Kavinsky; K, three months ago, had come up behind him and then pulled into the wrong lane, just for fun, just for the thrill of it. He had smiled, pushed his shades down the bridge of his nose to look at Ronan, and blew a kiss.

Ronan now felt the ghost of a smile on his own face as he intentionally popped the clutch. The car lurched forward and stalled, Ronan laughing. He’d seen Kavinsky pop his clutch too many times. Idiot.

He turned the key again, put the car in neutral, and shifted, more smoothly this time. The Mitsubishi, any of the Mitsubishis, were used to that kind of abuse; Ronan generally had more sense than to subject the BMW to the same. He continued, driving slowly by the gas station where he and K had filled up at the same time—coincidentally of course. It had involved a lot of lingering looks, especially on Kavinsky’s part; he’d held the nozzle up to his crotch, grinning at Ronan, mouth open and tongue at the corner of his lips. Ronan had looked away, fast, replacing his own nozzle and screwing the cap back on like his life depended on it. His life, or something else.

On another occasion, at the same gas station, Ronan had seen him prowling the aisles of the convenience store with Jiang and Proko. Ronan, too much pride, hadn’t ducked and edged out the door like he wished he could’ve. Instead, he’d grabbed a Monster—that was totally cool, right? Manly? Edgy?—and a bag of Doritos. Kavinsky, there for his Reds and to pass the cashier a small clear bag, had laughed anyway.

Ronan continued through the next two green lights, turning right at the third. He passed the ABC; once, not too long ago, Kavinsky had driven by, had seen the BMW in the parking lot, and had U-turned hard, tires squealing. Ronan had seen from the windows, heard it, saw the smoke from the tires. He’d frozen, drawn in a breath, let it out. He’d held in one hand a bottle of Skyy and in another a bottle of Skinnygirl grapefruit margarita. He’d put the latter back on the shelf quickly. Speed of light.

K had waited in the parking lot for Ronan and his single brown bag, Proko in the passenger seat. Clutching the bag, Ronan had supposed it didn’t much matter if he’d gotten the Skinnygirl after all, but he’d been nervous it would show on his face. Ronan Lynch, drinking fruity cocktails. Humiliating.

“What’s a boy like you doing in a place like this?” Kavinsky had asked, shades on even this late at night. “Hey, Lynch, did you use those IDs I got you? Hand-delivered and everything. Special made.”

“I’ve got my own.”

“Come on, Lynch! You really know how to make a guy feel special, don’t you? You partying with Richard? Hey, if your Dick over there ever needs anything, you just let me know.” Kavinsky had put his fingers to his forehead and saluted before three-pointing out of the parking lot.

Ronan had walked over to his car, thunking his head against the roof twice before getting in.

Ronan now took a left up past the ABC and kept going. Henrietta was small; not long now before he’d hit the last stoplight. Yellow, red, green. He paused at the green, nobody else around to honk at him. He’d probably pause anyway. Yellow, red.

He and Kavinsky used to stop at green lights all the time, waiting for the lights to switch, exploding off the mark as red turned to green, leaving black marks on the road, a sign that they were there. Like carving initials into a tree. The last time, he’d wrapped Gansey’s Camaro around a pole and fought off a night horror before Kavinsky came whirling back around to his rescue like he was some kind of damsel in distress.

The light turned green. Ronan, as always, didn’t screw the shift. He didn’t screw much of anything, he thought, but at least he didn’t screw that.

The drive soon turned residential, rolling fields a buffer between downtown and suburbia. The houses started small and grew bigger the further he went; he knew they’d start growing smaller again after that, a bell curve of relative wealth. One-story ranches with chain link fences, maybe a dog tied up outside. Two-story American-dream houses with a neat row of windows at the top, dark shutters, white-painted porches, and coordinated patio furniture. Houses with more garage doors, more windows, fence material graduating from chain link to wood to stone. Finally, he reached the neighborhood he wanted, full of flimsy McMansions that sprouted like weeds through a sidewalk

Everything here was new; everything seemed new in Kavinsky’s world. Ronan’s was full of old things: the Barns, creaky and weathered, full of cubby holes, outbuildings that looked their age, beaten by the wind and rain and relentless Virginia sun. Everything here looked like it had appeared overnight.

Ronan had driven past this house a handful of times but had only been inside once. He still didn’t know what the rest of the house looked like, but he imagined it was as ugly as the outside. He was used to long, rambling farmhouses, stitched together over time, or abandoned industrial buildings with more aesthetic than common sense. He decided on a new rule of thumb right then: if a house has more than two gables or a fucking parapet, run the other way.

He stopped just past the driveway. Gleaming beads of dew shimmered in the morning sun, the lawn stretching around the house, immaculate. He’d trampled across that lawn just once—twice actually, now that he thought about it; he just didn’t remember the first—staggering a little, elbow over his eyes to block out the light on a morning a lot like this. Kavinsky had offered him a pair of sunglasses, white framed of course. Snorting, Ronan had shoved Kavinsky, and Kavinsky had shoved him back.

Ronan kept going, unsure when the funeral service would be over and unwilling to see Mrs. Kavinsky in full black. He drove towards the drag strip, which connected downtown and The Country, Adam’s territory. He couldn’t face him today either. He hung a right toward the strip, following the speed limit although cops along this stretch were few and far between. The drag strip was the next logical step in this tour, and Ronan would not chicken out although he would take his time about it.

The field, optimistically a meadow in spring, little more than brown, brittle grass by summer, was littered with glass shards, crushed cans, crumpled Solo cups. The Fourth party had left its mark in property damage. Definitely in emotional damage if you asked the right person, but no way in fuck would Ronan say that out loud. The strip itself needed some work, which would be started on the next business day. The brown grass, a staple of the hot Henrietta summer, was burned out in giant swathes, black and ashy. It made the strip ugly. The Fourth party wasn’t supposed to be ugly initially, just another chance for a dick-measuring contest that Kavinsky would have won as per usual. Ronan didn’t think he could have beat him at his own game, but he would have tried, he thought. He would have tried real hard. Real. Hard.

He didn’t linger here, on the strip. Some things weren’t worth dwelling on, and Ronan would rather close the book on this particular chapter. The fields fed into small houses, close together, and then into brownstones, split in two. Windows down, the car responded smoothly, and Ronan kept going farther out into the fields on the other side of town.

There it was. The fairgrounds. The Mitsubishis still in a row, one a burnt out husk from Ronan’s dream Molotov, another from the substance party. _It’s a bomb, just like you_. The corner of Ronan’s mouth quirked—Kavinsky certainly had a flair for the dramatic. It had all been a show, everything outside of these fairgrounds and maybe even within these fairgrounds, littered with the ghosts of parties past. Ronan remembered a hand flat on a ribcage, a beer lifted high in the air, a burning car, how he felt when he saw the Mitsubishi go up in flames.

K had put on a show for Ronan that night, and for Gansey, his primary competition. Later though, when Ronan had returned to the fairgrounds with Kavinsky to dream, it hadn’t felt like a show. K had told him an awful lot of things then, private things, and Ronan wasn’t sure, looking back, if they were real. Maybe they too had just been pulled from dreams.

Nosing into the packed dirt, Ronan parked and climbed out of the car. He walked down the first row of shiny white cars before stopping in front of the one where he’d first felt Kavinsky’s hands on his back. He shivered. He still didn’t know if it was real like he didn’t know if K’s stories or feelings or fucking aesthetics were real. He’d wondered though, after, what it would feel like if any of it were genuine, if he was present and sober and—contributing. Uncertain and starting to get angry, he kicked the front tire of the nearest car before opening the door and climbing in. The pen scribbles were still on the dash, messy.

Messy. He supposed this might feel messy for a long time. As one final play, Kavinsky had neatly removed himself from the equation, neat for him anyway, and somehow it felt to Ronan like he’d won.

Ronan climbed out of the car, kicking the tire again, hard—ow, fuck! His big toe throbbed. Jesus! He made a mental note to buy some steel-toed boots; it was a wonder he didn’t have them already. He kicked an awful lot of things, and he really preferred leaving dents in inanimate objects instead of himself—and headed back to the BMW.

He ran out of places to go so he just drove, winding down through the farmland, looping toward the mountains in the distance and away again, crossing the bridge over Matthew’s favorite part of the river and back. He paused at the end of the bridge and turned sharply down a narrow dirt path next to the bridge. The concrete base of the bridge was covered with graffiti, new paint layered over old in great, sprawling loops. He’d seen K and his pack here before, just once.

He’d been on his way back to town after a long drive, restless, skin buzzing and not stopping, killing time before he had to meet Gansey and Adam at Nino’s. He’d driven over this same bridge with windows down, pausing—just like this—at the end to listen to some assholes whoop and holler. His skin had stopped itching during the drive, finally, but after hearing them it had started again. The sound was familiar. He’d gone ahead to Nino’s anyway, tried cajoling Noah into eating something. Gansey had talked about some new discovery he’d made, something about energy readings farther up in the mountains; Ronan had been thinking about the bridge.

He’d left Nino’s and circled back, parking his car off to the side of the road well before the bridge and walking the rest of the way. He’d passed cardboard pieces from a case of Bud Light Lime stuttering along the grass, blown by the breeze. First, he thought, who litters? Second, who even drank Bud Light Lime? This wasn’t a goddamn pool party. Ronan, who had been anticipating some kind of shitty teen rager, lowered his expectations abruptly. Lower than they had been. Rock bottom, really, at this point.

He had walked down the narrow dirt road next to the bridge, passing more shredded cardboard. Unbelievable. He’d heard someone laugh, loud and boisterous. That would be Jiang. Ah. This was a Kavinsky party—a Kavinsky party with Bud Light Lime. Ronan had smiled wryly, half his mouth slanted down. He’d never let K live this one down.

He’d stopped at the edge of the trail, the idiots under the bridge illuminated by a roaring barrel fire. They’d been sitting in a circle on the hard concrete of the bridge base, surrounding a single Solo cup, discarded bottles littering the space between them and their dusty cars. Ronan had watched as Skov bounced a quarter neatly into the cup. He'd grinned and passed the cup to Kavinsky.

“Goddammit!” Kavinsky had yelled before draining the cup and catching the quarter between his teeth. He’d refilled the cup from his own bottle and passed the quarter to Swan.

Swan had missed the cup completely, the rest laughing and catcalling. He’d turned to shove Skov over; Skov, startled and laughing, had lain in the dirt, swinging his arm up to pillow his head. “Hey, dude, it’s not my fault you suck at this.”

“Wait, wait, I got it this time.” Swan had shot again, missed again. Skov had convulsed, spilling his beer across the pavement. Swan had pushed him again and grabbed the cup, catching the quarter and spinning it with his tongue. Skov had rolled his eyes, still grinning.

Swan had poured the rest of his bottle into the cup and reached around for another, snapping the cap off with the end of his belt and passing the quarter to Proko. Proko, for his turn, had bounced the quarter off the rim of the cup and quickly shot again, making it this time. He’d handed the cup to Kavinsky while batting his lashes and grinning.

“You all trying to get me liquored up? Fuck you.” Kavinsky had drained the cup quickly, sputtering into the dregs as Jiang whispered something in his ear. He’d swallowed and then burst out laughing before digging the quarter out with his fingers and passing it to Jiang. Jiang had made the shot, first try, and had passed the cup again to Kavinsky. K had leaned over to whisper something back; Jiang had frozen and Ronan had guessed he was blushing.

Kavinsky had pulled out the quarter. He’d shot, missed, shot again, missed again. “Fuck!” He’d drained the cup, catching the quarter in between his teeth and leaning over to Swan. Swan had taken the cue, biting the edge of the quarter and pulling it from Kavinsky’s mouth. Kavinsky had laughed, and Ronan—Ronan had no longer felt decidedly superior about the Bud Light Lime. His fingers had twitched.

Ronan hadn’t waited after that to see what happened. His clothes had felt too close to his skin, too-hot-itching-dragging. He’d imagined Kavinsky calling out, slurring a little, “Hey, lady! Come join us.” He couldn’t deal with it.

Now, Ronan kicked at a discarded bottle, still there even after all these months. Ah, fuck, ok. Kick less, he told himself. His toe was still bruised.

He picked up the bottle, running his finger around the rim and dipping inside. The glass was cool to the touch, smooth and slightly dusty. He drew his finger back out, running the dust around the outside of the rim and then again from bottom joint to fingertip. With his other hand he gripped the base, flexing, rotating the bottle slowly. His fingers circled it, met, thumb touching pointer. He didn’t know whose bottle it was, but he supposed it didn’t much matter. It was definitely one of theirs though—no one else in their goddamn right minds would drink this shit. He wished now that he’d joined them just to see what would’ve happened.

Ronan returned to his car and dug a quarter out of his cup holder, brushing off the grit that always seemed to collect with change. Made in 1969 with the “19” scratched off. Nice. He walked around the base of the bridge, kicking at tufts of grass that had managed to sprout up through the dust until he found the discarded Solo cup. He walked back under the bridge and sat cross-legged near the barrel, no longer burning and now cool in the shade. He took a breath, shot once, missed. It was harder than it looked, and he didn’t have much practice. He shot again, missed, shot, bounced off the rim. K had been approaching hammered when he’d done this; Ronan didn’t have that excuse. Fourth time’s the charm, he thought, finally bouncing it at the right angle. The cup didn’t have anything in it besides the quarter, but Ronan picked it up and ran his fingers around the edge, put the edge to his lips.

He set the cup back on the ground, returned to his car, and scooped up his spare change. He had enough of it that he had to cup both hands around the pile—a few quarters, nickels, and dimes and an awful lot of pennies. They were a plague on his cup holder.

Back at the cup, he let the coins run through his fingers—the first few hitting the bottom, deep in timbre against the plastic of the cup and the concrete beneath, and then hitting the coins in the cup, rising in tone. His hands would smell like metal now, he knew, sharp and unpleasant. No way though was he going to let the cup just drift around in the breeze; the oceans were clogged with this shit, assholes like these to blame. The least he could do is weigh it down, and anyway, he didn’t want to bring the cup with him.

He got up and walked back to his car, cup filled with coins and alone on the pavement. Maybe he should have joined them that night, but he’d done enough dwelling today. Onward and upward, he thought. Maybe that wasn’t the worst thing.

The next week, though, Chainsaw had disappeared for a couple hours—long enough for him to wonder, not long enough for him to worry. She must have flown in through the open window because she was now perched on the corner of his desk, cocking her head, watching. Ronan walked over to her and held out his arm as she hopped up onto his shoulder. He saw now that she’d cleared a space on his desk, dream things pushed to the side and papers scattered on the floor. He looked down at the center of the desk. A penny sat in the middle of the empty space as she waited for him to pick it up. He did, running it through his fingers and flipping it up in the air. He smiled at her and fed her a bit of cracker before opening a drawer, filled with bits of string, buttons, shiny things he hadn’t ever thrown away, and dropping it in.

The next week, Chainsaw brought him a dime. Ronan dropped it into the drawer.

And again the week after that.

A nickel this time.

Another penny.

A nickel.

Again.

Dime.

Quarter. Chainsaw, looking very pleased with herself, settled on Ronan’s shoulder to wait for her treat. Ronan swept this coin into his drawer too. He had a collection of coins now, earmarked for toll roads and Coke machines.

He paused, opened the drawer again, picked up the quarter. He flipped it over and rubbed the dust from the face of it. Ronan froze, eyes flicking to the drawer full of coins that Chainsaw had collected over the past nine weeks. His pulse stuttered and he blinked twice, fast.

The quarter was missing its “19.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [thegeminisage](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage) for editing, encouragement, and sentiments like "no, it's not too fluffy" and "PLEASE tell me he puts his finger in the bottle."


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